“Stop sale, if possible. Can satisfy creditors!”
The telegram was brought to the house while we were at breakfast. Cyrus turned white to the lips as he read it.
“If there could be a chance!” he murmured, while grandma chirped to the canary in blissful unconcern. “But what is it possible for the boy to do? We have no credit now because we have no prospects! You don’t think I would have left any stone unturned, Bathsheba? It would be useless for me to try to stop the sale!”
“But Dave is not one to get foolish fancies into his head,” I insisted.
“Dave is a good fellow, but he’s only twenty,” said Cyrus; and threw the telegram into the waste-basket.
“I wish—I wish that Uncle Horace had not gone away,” I said, desperately.
“He could do nothing,” said Cyrus, patiently. “Besides, he is almost unbalanced by his anxiety about Rob.”
Cyrus went off, repeating that it was useless to try to stop the sale; but at the gate he was met by the assignee, into whose hands the creditors had put their claims. He also had received a telegram, and was disposed to be governed by it. His had come from the millionaire, Solomon Salter. That was the man for whose yacht Dave had made the design.
He came down to Palmyra with Dave the next day—a little man, with a curly wig, sharp eyes and frisky little movements, like a squirrel’s. I may as well say here that we learned afterward, that under a sharp and business-like outward presentment he concealed a heart as big as his fortune, which is not supposed to be characteristic of millionaires. But it was not his heart which saved the day for us; it was, as he assured us, purely a business matter. He wished a yacht built, and had been convinced by Dave that we had just the facilities for building yachts at our shipyard. Young Carruthers, of whose property he was trustee, wished to have a yacht built also, and there were others whose custom he could influence in our direction.
Those boys, Dave and Ned Carruthers, had had to spend some time talking him round; he had a good many irons in the fire, but he liked Dave’s design and he liked his pluck. He had talked with him enough to know that he was a business man as well as an artist, and he thought that with the little lift that he should be glad to give him the business might go on prosperously.